General Motors

History of the Company
In 1900 New York held an Auto Show where there was a surprise turnout and it showed just how much interest the United States citizens had with automobiles. This enticed many different companies into entering the automobile history to try and meet the growing demand. On September 16, 1908, William “Billy” Durant founded General Motors Company (GM) who at one time was a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles in Flint, Michigan. Initially, GM consisted of only the Buick Motor Company but took only a number of years to acquire more than twenty different companies. Some of these companies include Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Pontiac. Opel, a brand that was recognized worldwide, became General Motor’s first international acquisition (http://www.gm.com).
The major recession that came about in 2008 dried up private sources of capital and had the United Sates Treasury give GM a bridge loan to aide in the restructuring of its operations. Furthermore, it is evident that sales of motor vehicles have increased since the rescue of the auto industry each year since 2009 (http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/). The economy is finally recovering and we will soon see if GM is in a place to again thrive.
In the 80’s and 90’s GM encountered its largest single production expansion outside of North America in Spain. Furthermore, since GM had joint ventures in both China and India, they were able to provide a variety of automobiles and reach a broad customer base worldwide. Finally, in 1995 GM had annual sales that exceeded three million units outside of North America. GM also went onto form NUMMI, a joint venture with Toyota, and Saturn, that focused on making a new small car and a different way to carry out business (http://www.gm.com).
Today, GM manufactures automobiles in over 30 countries and in 2011 produced...